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CULTURE OF FLORES
PEOPLE
– Hoga
Sara
GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION – province
of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Flores
island, regency Ngada, district
Golewa, administrative village Sara
Sedu
LOCAL
CONDITIONS: subsistence,
traditional villages (nua) and clans
(woe), great houses (sa’o meze)
composition of clans; important
ritual objects that serve as symbols
of group identity (sa’o meze,
bhaga, madhu, peo, ture, nabe) ;
madhu/peo – cosmological
significance, social structure,
rights to land
Religion:
traditional
belief system and ritual practices,
indigenized form of Catholicism;
important rituals include: rituals
of installment and renewal of
symbols of group identity, rituals
of the annual agricultural calendar,
life-cycle rites
Creating
the Ancestors through ritual and
sacrifice:
1.)
Ancestors
of the inside, specific forms
of nitu: named, mainly benevolent
and protective ensuring fertility,
well-being, and continuity of group
through granting life-generative
potential
ebu
nusi / ebu kajo
believed
to be embodied in the various
objects symbolizing group identity
2.)
Ancestors
of the outside, generalized
ancestors, nitu: inhabit invisible
villages in the forest jungle;
specifically in
lake/pond/river/stream beds (i.e.
water sources), large stones and
boulders, large trees of the
Ficus type – banyan trees and
especially hebu (Cassia
fistula); these are mainly
potentially malevolent if their
place of habitation is breached by
improper human behavior but
benevolent when approached in the
context of ritual; beneath the earth
– particularly as guardians of the
agricultural garden and of the
village;
»
Both
types of ancestors can be a source
of life-generative potential; will
assume similar forms—human, snake,
buffalo, wild pig
»
Beliefs
about human soul and village of the
dead: nature of the soul (mae),
ritual (regha mae) of chasing out
the soul of deceased from human
spaces of the inside to uninhabited
spaces of the outside,
representations of the village of
the ancestors (nua nitu), the gate
to the village at the roots of the
tamarind tree (kabu nage)
»
Ancestors
of the outside are periodically
reclaimed and transformed into
specific ancestors of the inside
through rituals of renewal and
installation of symbolic objects of
group identity
»
Ritual
extraction and transport of large
stones for the construction of ture
and nabe; ritual extraction and
transport of hebu tree for madhu /
peo, bhaga, sa’o meze
»
During this process in ritual chant
and song instruct the spirit to stay
within stones/trees as if it was
their soul
»
Dangerous
time for humans until ritual
installation in village (ancestoral
spirit could abduct the human soul
and cause illness and death; or
assume form of ritual specialist and
mate with his wife killing her)
»
During the ritual installation must
smear object with sacrificial blood
and while doing so must name with an
ancestral name; smearing is said to
seal in the ancestral spirit, to
convert its nature -- potential harm
into continuous generative
potential, to set up boundary
between humans and deceased
(categories of living and dead
should not mix unless sanctioned by
ritual)
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